{"id":487499,"date":"2026-05-16T09:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T09:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487499\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T09:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T09:40:07","slug":"the-sky-today-on-saturday-may-16-whale-watching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487499\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on Saturday, May 16: Whale watching"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tFind Canes Venatici high in the south after dark tonight to go hunting for NGC 4631 \u2014 an edge-on spiral also known as the Whale Galaxy.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1601\" height=\"1126\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/whalegalaxy.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"A telescopic photograph of the Whale Galaxy (NGC 4631), an edge-on spiral galaxy appearing as a long, thin streak of blue and white light with a bright, mottled core, set against a black sky filled with foreground stars. A smaller companion galaxy is visible just above the main galaxy near the center of the image.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Whale Galaxy (NGC 4631) in Canes Venatici is a great deep-sky target for large scopes, particularly with the New Moon on the 16th. Above the larger Whale Galaxy is dwarf galaxy NGC 4627. Credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/flickr.com\/photos\/forthimage\/51094285626\/in\/photolist-2kR2z25-2m8wvFD-2mN1AqS-c8fhgS-2rwUc9w-2mQVv5w-2qkNhR8-2rNGKsR-2rp9mF9-2qYsmSv-2r2rATf-2rkYWHz-2rfZmyu-22dEiGo-2qC6TfS-2sbFKox-2m7CVw2-2sbFg2M-2rnuyEV-2sbEv2A-85J8Lw-2rwVzka-SL2PsC-2kRR4u6-5Bj8CC-2mQ7dtb-23B9gYC-2g9t36q-2rwVzjU-9YbLam-2rnDzUy-oA9EBx-8rXBDH-2hXCFAk-paK9CM-2hAbCJD-oAae8U-2rg4ojP-2oC6ePu-fPqUzD-2q1ZuB6-9F89gZ-7FeAbD-2qYrwTY-rg3Gxd-XgSXaq-2pSoDnc-7vQTvy-WwaaC-W7hQPB\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mark Phillips (Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-this-week-from-may-15-to-22-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>May 15: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-friday-may-15-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">A double shadow transit at Jupiter<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>New Moon occurs at 4:01 P.M. EDT, leaving the evening sky perfect for deep-sky observing.<\/p>\n<p>By 10 P.M. local time, the sky should be dark. High in the south is the constellation Canes Venatici, where our target for tonight is located. We\u2019re hunting down NGC 4631, also known as the Whale Galaxy. You\u2019ll find it just 6.5\u00b0 south-southwest of Cor Caroli (Alpha [\u03b1] Canum Venaticorum), which shines at magnitude 2.9.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Whale glows softly at magnitude 9.2, stretching some five times longer than it is wide (15\u2019 by 3\u2019). Try an 8-inch or larger scope with a magnification of 200x to see detail. This galaxy is an edge-on spiral, meaning we\u2019re looking directly into the plane of the disk. You may notice a mottled appearance, caused by dust lanes blocking out light along the galaxy\u2019s brighter disk. It is thicker toward the east than the west, giving the object the appearance of a whale with a larger, rounder head and body that taper into a thinner tail.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You may also notice a tiny dwarf galaxy, NGC 4627, nearby, glowing at 12th magnitude to the Whale\u2019s northwest. The pair is indeed close in real space as well \u2014 the two galaxies have interacted in the past, triggering a burst of bright star formation in the larger Whale.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sunrise:<\/strong>\u00a05:44 A.M.<br \/><strong>Sunset:<\/strong>\u00a08:09 P.M.<br \/><strong>Moonrise:<\/strong>\u00a05:07 A.M.<br \/><strong>Moonset:<\/strong>\u00a08:36 P.M.<br \/><strong>Moon Phase:<\/strong> New<br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List Find Canes Venatici high in the south after dark tonight to go hunting for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,2209,133,75779],"class_list":{"0":"post-487499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-observing","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-sky-tonight"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}